Hi Chris/Everyone,
div>
I'm glad that you seem to be enjoying our debate as much as I am Chris. I just wish that more people within the Ripperology (and the whole world!) could be so happy to debate things. For some reason the vast majority of people I find can never debate they only seem to want to argue. I think it is great that you hold strong beliefs and are prepared to 'put your head on the chopping block' so to speak. A lot of the things you have said so far I will admit have made me stop and think and I will also conceed that I don't have answers for them all. I hope you have also been made to question your own beliefs in this way. For example you mentioned how James/the writer of the diary perpetually gives the impression that Michael wrote lyrics or poetry/was clever with words. As his brother (and apparently close one) you would have expected that James would have known that his brother was a composer. Perhaps however James was thinking more of Michael's days as a singer and could have been under the impression that at this time Michael had been a lyricist. Mind you we are talking about the same James Maybrick here (if you believe that he wrote his will) that spelt the name of his own daughter incorrectly!
I do think however that perhaps in a bizarre way it is actually a GOOD thing that the diary can not be proven to be 100% foot perfect on every detail. The reason for this being that very few of us ever remember events etc entirely accurately anyway and more importantly if the case for the diary was an 'open and shut case' it would strike me as 'too good to be true'.
I have read quite a lot about the Kennedy assasination and through this read a book by Chuck Giancana called 'Double Cross'. Chuck was the brother of the famous 1960's crime boss Sam Giancana and in the book he tells how Sam once remarked to him that 'if anything in life looks to be an open and shut case you can bet your life it's a set up cos' real life's not like that'.
I do agree with you on another point you made actually Chris. Even I thought that Paul Feldman's revelation of a family connection to Florence Maybrick was not conclusively proven. I'm not saying that it could not have been true but as you said I think Paul just got so deeply involved in the story of the diary (I think it seriously damaged his personal life) that by that stage he simply WANTED there to be a connection. For anyone out there that is interested in learning more about James Maybrick I would recommend the books 'The Poisoned Life Of Mrs Maybrick' by Bernard Ryan and particularly 'Etched In Arsenic' by Trevor L Christie.
All the best for now,
Tony.
Bookmarks